


running from a savior

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Marco Polo (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Tag, Episode Tag: Hug, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 08:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15859740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: Mei Lin tells Marco that Kublai will kill the boy emperor. Marco believes her.He takes the boy and runs.





	running from a savior

Mei Lin says Kublai will kill Zhao Xian. Marco doesn’t want to believe it, but.

He is fresh from the horrors of war. He saw the sacking of Xianyang. And with Mei Lin in tow he has seen the devastation of South China’s people. The suicides, the rioters. This chaos and violence all comes from Kublai. And if that were not enough, he thinks back to the last time he told a captive Kublai would be merciful, during the siege of Xianyang. He thinks about how Kublai’s men hacked bodies limb from limb into a bloody mess of flesh, just as an intimidation tactic, just to break the enemy’s spirit. There had been little threat from the captives. That Zhao Xian is harmless will mean nothing to Kublai if he is set on slaughter.

“The Khan is a good and merciful man,” he tells Mei Lin, and when she snorts, he knows she thinks he really believes it. Good.

He waits until he’s sure she’s sleeping, not just faking for whatever reason, then very quietly gets up. Mei Lin thinks he’s incompetent a lot of the time—he can’t fight as well as her, and he doesn’t understand the nuances of South China very well—but there are some things he knows as a Venetian and as a traveler. He knows how to move softly, and he knows how to pack lightly and quickly. He even succeeds at picking up Zhao Xian without waking him up. It probably helps that after a day of travel the boy is exhausted.

He takes one horse and unties the other, hoping it will wander and cause Mei Lin trouble when she wakes. And she will wake soon, no doubt. In fact, he wonders as he rides away, Zhao Xian in his lap, if even that noise will be enough to wake her.

Either way, they have to move fast.

He does not know exactly where they ought to go. They can’t go back to the village Zhao Xian was in before. Marco would be killed on sight, and even for Zhao Xian it’s not really a safe location. Neither can they head towards Khanbaliq anymore—Marco’s decided he’s not bringing Zhao Xian there so it’s better to not even go near the city. He picks a direction that will lead to a nearby town instead.

What will he do with the boy? For his plans, beyond getting him away from the Mongols and away from Mei Lin, are vague. He has no desire to turn the boy over to king-makers. No desire to destabilize Kublai’s rule and besides, being the figurehead of a revolution would get the boy killed just as surely, though perhaps a bit later down the road. No, that’s not an option. If he's decided to save this boy he has to make it stick.

He could, he thinks, drop the boy off with some poor family, leave them what money he has and tell them to keep him. That would be… well, it would be hard to find a trustworthy family, but anyone is more trustworthy than Kublai, at least towards Zhao Xian. It could work.

Or he could take the boy with him. His plans for himself are more clear-cut. If he can’t return to Kublai as planned, all he can do is take his tablet and ride to the border of China and get the hell out. Hell, he could take the boy all the way back to Venice. He’d be a foreigner there and very out of place, but he’d be alive.

Or he could get caught by Lotus, he reminds himself sarcastically. It’s much more likely than this thrown together plan actually working. Very likely indeed. And then Marco will die and Zhao Xian will be reunited with the rabble rousers again.

* * *

 

In the end none of these three things happens, because Marco’s escape only lasts a day. It’s a tense day. Zhao Xian keeps asking why they’ve left Mei Lin and, when Marco says plans have changed, where they’re going. And Marco is now burdened with all the duties of caring for a child, where before he’d split them with Mei Lin.

But at the end of the day Mei Lin catches up with them.

They’ve made camp for the night when she arrives. She, too, can travel quietly, and he does not realize she has come until her arm is around his throat. He throws her off and reaches for his sword, but she wrestles him and manages to get it away from him and toss it across the clearing into a bush. From there it’s pure kung fu, and his skills are by far the inferior. He gets one kick on her knee and almost knocks her over, but she recovers fast, and really, he’s not prepared to fight her. He loses even faster than he lost to Lotus. She throws him to the ground and puts her foot on his neck.

“Evening,” she says, “Master Polo.”

It is the first thing she has said to him.

He does not respond, only glares.

“What were you going to do with the young emperor? Did you want to bring him to the Khan without me, to get all the glory for yourself? You’re travelling in the wrong direction.”

He says, “You mock me.”

A thin smile appears on her face. “Well, obviously.”

“You were the one who…inspired me. You said…” And instinctively his eyes travel to Zhao Xian, who is huddled against a tree, arms crossed over his knees, waiting to see how this will all turn out. He still can’t bring himself to speak the boy’s fate in front of him. “You said the Khan would not be welcoming.”

“And my word was enough to corrupt the Khan’s lapdog? Turn him traitor?”

“You told me not to trust him.”

“I said that so you would understand what you did, not so you would quit.” Mei Lin is glaring back at him now. “You are weak.”

“I do not consider it weak to do the right thing.”

Mei Lin takes her foot off his throat. She steps back. He sits up but does not stand.

She says, “You will take the boy back to Khanbaliq.”

“I will not.” It’s foolish to argue against a woman who could kill him but she hasn’t yet and to be fair, many people have called Marco foolish.

“You will. Or I will tie you hand and foot and drag you both back together.”

“Kill me and take him back yourself.”

“I’m sure that would win me a welcome from the Khan.”

Marco sighs. “Mei Lin, I cannot do this.”

“You think you know what to do with a boy emperor better than the Khan?” Mei Lin asks. “You think you can make decisions about the fate of this nation? About my fate and my daughter’s fate? Stop thinking about your own feelings. You are the Khan’s servant or you are nothing.”

Marco does not think that if they failed to bring back Zhao Xian, Kublai would kill Ling Ling. Though, perhaps that’s the result of his own flawed logic. And Mei Lin… Mei Lin could surely run. And he can take the boy to a village of commoners to hide, or to Venice, and…

And deep down he knows that none of this is going to work out.

He sighs again. He lowers himself back down to the ground and lies there, feeling the damp earth on his back. And selfishly, he does not think about Mei Lin or Ling Ling or even Zhao Xian. He thinks about the boy he was once in Venice. How he had wished for someone to come and save him. There had been nothing to save him from except his boring aunt and her lectures, but he had still wished for it like he’d never wished for anything else. Not because he was in danger, but because if someone came to save him, to whisk him away from the life that he knew, it would mean that someone actually cared about him enough to do so. It would mean somebody loved him, wanted him, in a way his aunt never had and never could.

But the only person who has ever wanted him is Kublai Khan, the man whom Marco is now rebelling against. Kublai, brutal killer, was Marco’s savior.

He sits up. “Very well then. I am the Khan’s man.” His voice comes out bitter and quiet, but he cannot help that. “Help me make camp, then. I assume you brought the provisions I left behind.”

Mei Lin watches him very carefully, that night and all the days and nights that follow. But he does not run again.

**Author's Note:**

> I had heard spoilers the boy emperor was going to die, so all while watching the episode Hug I wanted Marco or Mei Lin or both to just take him and run. But, realistically, I can't imagine that would end well. So here's my fic where the dream comes true for a single day.  
> I'd love to hear from you in the comments! or come see me on tumblr at convenientalias.


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